‘In South, they make actors Chief Miners straight away’: Ravi Kishan hints at Vijay | Bollywood News

3 min readNew DelhiJul 24, 2026 04:58 PM Actor-politician Ravi Kishan, who has appeared in over 700 films in his three-decade-long career, recently opened up about his political career, whilst also balancing a fairly active career in the movies. Ravi was a guest at The Indian Express’ Idea Exchange on Friday, July 24. During the conversation, Ravi was asked about Aamir Khan’s production Laapataa Ladies, where Ravi played a pivotal role. He shared that director Kiran Rao offered him the role when he was a newly elected parliamentarian. He also spoke about taking his career as a parliamentarian quite seriously and made a remark, without naming Vijay, “If you go to south, they make actors Chief Miners straight away.”
Ravi was asked about Aamir auditioning for the same role as him and he shared, “Aamir did his own audition. He wanted to play my character. He got his uniform also but Kiran Rao, she saw me in Mukkabaaz, and she wanted me in that role.”
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‘If you go to south, they make actors CMs straight away’
Ravi recalled that he was offered when he was a newly elected MP. “I had just won as an MP, and I was very excited to go to the parliament. I know a few of my senior actors did not go to the parliament as much, and because of that, there was an impression that actors are not serious about this,” he said.
Ravi said that he has always been very keen to do his job as an MP and enjoys attending the Parliament. He then hinted at VIjay’s ascent as the Tamil Nadu Chief Miner and said, “If you go to South, they make actors CMs straight away.” Ravi is a BJP MP.
Ravi then elaborated on Laapataa Ladies and said that when Kiran called and requested for half an hour of his time, he made it clear that his parliamentary duties did not allow him the time for her, but since Kiran was quite keen on casting, she came to Delhi to meet him. “She said, ‘I want to meet you very urgently’.”
In 45 minutes, Ravi said yes to the script. He revealed that the budget of the film was Rrs 5 crore and it eventually went on to make Rs 150-200 crore.Story continues below this ad
‘Laapataa Ladies missed out on National Awards’
Ravi shared that after the film released in theatres and received the audience’s love, that is when Aamir uploaded his own audition. “I got an IIFA, a Filmfare; it even went to the Oscars. We missed out on the National Awards; perhaps it was not submitted,” he said.
Ravi Kishan played a local cop named Shyam Manohar in the film who appears to be a negative character at first, but eventually plays a crucial role in getting Pratibha Ranta’s Jaya out of her abusive husband’s trap.